268 Report on the State of Useful Arts. 



of his skill in improved workmanship, he himself reaps a still 

 greater personal profit. The factory which once required sharp 

 overseers to keep the men at their work, which exhibited a con- 

 tinual conflict between the interests of the employer and of the 

 employed, now shews a harmony between those interests ; the 

 only opposition of interest being in the bargain of how much 

 per piece. In this manner the depressing influence of continual 

 jealousy is avoided and greater harmony and more perfect co- 

 operation secured between the different classes of society. 



In my previous reports I have not hesitated to advert to the 

 truth that the cultivation of the morals, taste, and intellect of all 

 classes, is essential to the improvement of society ; and have in- 

 sisted particularly in favour of the more numerous classes, and 

 perhaps I do not go out of my way in the present paper, by 

 drawing the attention of the Society of Arts to the facilities 

 which this city aff'ords to the improvement of their tastes. 



With praise-worthy zeal in a good cause, some of our public 

 bodies have thrown open their institutions. Still, a commence- 

 ment merely has been made in this course, and scarcely a pub- 

 lic place is accessible to the workman ; in many cases the charge, 

 and in almost all the hour, presenting serious obstacles. It is 

 indeed matter of deep regret that our museum which contains 

 objects of such intense and varied interest should remain shut 

 against us ; and that while Scotland furnishes her share of the 

 expenses of the British Museum, the trifling compensation which 

 would make ours patent to the public is denied us ; and that thus 

 the meritorious labours of our eminent Professor of Natural His- 

 tory are, comparatively, locked up. 



Impressed with the importance of this subject, I would ear- 

 nestly recommend to the Society, that in founding a museum of 

 models, arrangements should be made for affording, at hours 

 convenient to the workmen, the freest admission, and every fa- 

 cility for taking sketches and dimensions ; that this Society 

 should, as far as they are able, follow in the footsteps of, or 

 even precede the public-spirited societies to which I have alluded. 



